Seeed Studio announced two assembled e-paper displays on 3 November 2026, built together with the open-source OpenDisplay project. The OpenDisplay 4.26" Mono Kit costs $39.90 and the 7.3" Color Kit costs $75.90. Both are sold in Seeed's own store and on AliExpress.

OpenDisplay grew out of the OpenEPaperLink community. It provides firmware, an open communication protocol and tools for wireless e-paper screens, with the emphasis on local control and low power. Earlier this year Seeed published a guide to building DIY OpenDisplay tags and asked its community to vote on screen sizes. These two kits are the result.

What is in the box

Both kits arrive assembled, with the OpenDisplay firmware already installed, a 2,000 mAh rechargeable battery, a white 3D-printed enclosure and a stand that works in portrait or landscape. The driver boards are Seeed's XIAO EN05 and EN04, both based on the nRF52840, and they talk over Bluetooth Low Energy. According to Seeed, the displays can take new content whenever they are powered on and in Bluetooth range, without waiting for a scheduled wake-up.

  • 4.26" Mono Kit: 800 x 480 monochrome panel, black and white or optional 4-level grayscale, with partial refresh in monochrome mode. Seeed estimates up to two years on a charge with an update every 15 minutes.
  • 7.3" Color Kit: 800 x 480 Spectra 6 panel with six colours (black, white, red, yellow, blue and green). Estimated battery life is up to a year with an update every two hours.

Seeed adds that real battery life depends on image content, temperature and usage, and points to the OpenDisplay battery calculator.

How it connects

Home Assistant is optional. After power-on the screen shows a device ID starting with "OD" and a QR code that opens a browser-based BLE tester, where you can upload and send an image. That works in Chrome or Edge on desktop and Android, or in Bluefy on iOS. There is also an open-source Python SDK, py-opendisplay.

With the OpenDisplay integration installed and Bluetooth working, Home Assistant should discover the display under Settings > Devices & services, and automations can then push weather, energy use, calendars or sensor readings to it. An ESPHome Bluetooth proxy can extend range. Shelly Bluetooth proxies will not work for image uploads, because OpenDisplay needs active BLE connections.

The kits are a cheap way to get an always-on dashboard on a shelf or by the door without running a cable or a cloud service.